Darkness Descending

Corporal in Unkerlanter army

Magnulf

Leudast's sergeant

Merovec

Marshal Rathar's adjutant

Morold

Dowser east of Cottbus

Munderic

Leader of irregulars in Duchy of Grelz

Ortwin

General near the town of Wirdum

Rathar*

Marshal of Unkerlant

Roflanz

Leudast's former regimental commander; deceased

Swemmel

King of Unkerlant

Syrivald

Garivald's son

Vatran

General fighting in the south

Waddo

Firstman in Zossen

Wimar

Sergeant in the western Duchy of Grelz

Valmiera

Bauska

Krastas maidservant

Dauktu

Peasant and irregular near Pavilosta

Gainibu

King of Valmeria

Gedominu

Peasant and irregular blazed by Algarvians

Krasta*

Marchioness in Priekule; Skarnu's sister

Merkela

Widow to Gedominu; Skarnu's lover

Negyu

Farmer near Pavilosta

Raunu

Skarnu's former sergeant; irregular

Sefanu

Duke of Klaipeda's nephew

Simanu

Count over Pavilosta; the late Enkuru's son

Skarnu*

Captain; irregular against Algrave; Krasta's brother

Valnu

Viscount in Priekule

Yanina

Broumidis

Colonel of dragonfliers on austral continent

Iskakis

Yaninan minister to Zuwayza

Tsavellas

King of Yanina

Zuwayza

Hajjaf

Zuwayzi foreign minister

Ikhshid

General in the Zuwayzi army

Kolthoum

Hajjaj's senior wife

Lalla

Hajjaj's third wife

Muhassin

Colonel in the Zuwayzi army

Qutuz

Hajjaj's secretary

Shaddad

Hajjaj's former secretary

Shazli

King of Zuwayza

Tewflk

Hajjaj's majordomo

One

 

Tealdo slogged west across what seemed an endless sea of grass. Every so often, he or his Algarvian comrades would flush a bird from cover. They’d raise their sticks to their shoulders and blaze at it as it fled. They were ready to blaze at anything.

Sometimes they would flush an Unkerlanter from cover. Unlike the birds, the Unkerlanters had a nasty habit of blazing back. The Unkerlanters also had an even nastier habit of staying in cover till a good-sized party of Algarvian soldiers had gone by, and then blazing at them from behind. The ones Tealdo and his comrades caught after stunts like that did not go east into captives’ camps, even if they tried to surrender.

“Stubborn whoreson,” Sergeant Panfilo said, dragging one such soldier in rock-gray out of his hole once he’d been stalked and slain. His coppery side whiskers and waxed mustachios were sadly draggled. “Don’t know what he thought he was doing, but he isn’t going to do it anymore.”

“He wounded two of ours, one of them pretty bad,” Tealdo said. “I suppose he figured--or his commanders figured--that’s fair exchange.” His own mustache and little chin beard, about as red as Panfilo’s, could also have used sprucing up. No matter how fastidious you wanted to be, you couldn’t stay neat in the field.

From up ahead, Captain Galafrone called, “Come on, you lazy bastards! We’ve got a long way to go before we can take it easy. Unkerlant isn’t much of a kingdom, but it’s cursed big.”

“And that’s the other thing this fellow was doing,” Tealdo said, stirring the dead Unkerlanter with his foot: “Slowing us down, I mean.”

Panfilo swept off his hat and gave Tealdo a sardonic bow. “I thank you for your explanation, my lord Marshal. Or are you perhaps pretending to be the king?”

“Never mind,” Tealdo said. Arguing with his sergeant didn’t pay. Neither did showing Panfilo up.

They started marching west again, toward a column of smoke that marked a burning village. A young lieutenant with soot streaking his face came up to Galafrone and said, “Sir, will you order in your men to rout out the last of those miserable Unkerlanters in there?”

Galafrone frowned. “I don’t much like to do it. I’d sooner leave ‘em behind and push on. If we fight for every miserable little village, we’ll run out of men before King Swemmel does.”

“But if we pass them all by, they’ll harass us from behind,” the lieutenant said. Then he noticed that Galafrone, while wearing a captains badges, had none that proclaimed him a noble. The young officer’s lip curled. “I don’t suppose commoners can be expected to have the spirit to understand such things.”

Galafrone knocked him down. When he started to get up, the veteran knocked him down again, and kicked him for good measure. “I don’t suppose they teach juniors to respect their superior officers these days,” he remarked in conversational tones. “But you’ve just learned that lesson, haven’t you?”

“Sir?” the lieutenant wheezed, and then, “Aye, sir.” When he got up again, Galafrone let him. He took a deep breath before resuming, “Sir, you may not care for my tone”--which was, Tealdo judged, a pretty fair understatement--”but the question remains: how can we leave the Unkerlanters behind us?”

“They’ll wither on the vine once we pass them by,” Galafrone said. “We’ve got to knock this whole kingdom flat, not fight through it one village at a time.”

“If we don’t capture the villages, sir”--the young lieutenant was careful now to speak with all due military formality, but did not back away from his own view--”how are we going to knock the kingdom flat?”